Why fat is a capitalist issue

Canny investors and entrepeneurs are oten able to turn disaster into opportunity. And that's true of the current obesity epidemic.

It may be an apocryphal story, but they're often the best ones. George Bush Jnr reportedly said that the trouble with the French was that they had no word for entrepreneur. It's increasingly obvious, however, that despite Napoleon having described us as a nation of shopkeepers, the British have adopted this French word with enthusiasm.

Every morning at Waterloo East I pass a stand selling oat and yoghurt breakfasts. I sometimes stop to buy, but I'm always impressed by the ready smiles of the sellers. Something tells me it's a business that's going to grow. A quick internet search tells me they're ex-City workers on a mission to feed hungry commuters. I've a feeling that one day they may be telling us how they made their first million. In the meantime, there's Andrew Franklin, who lost his job at Penguin and founded Profile Books. More importantly, he published Lynne Truss's punctuation blockbuster, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which sold three million copies in hardback, was distributed in the US by Penguin and now employs the man who fired him.

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